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Monday, December 03, 2007

Will Democrats Field ANYONE for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals?

Texas Monthly may think they're "Texas' Worst Court," and that Presiding Judge Sharon Keller should be impeached, but with one month left to go, no Democrat has yet signed up to run against any of the incumbents up for re-election next year on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This potentially leaves the same nine members on the court for the next biennium who Presiding Judge Sharon Keller bullied into repeated outrageous decisions over the last several years.

Of the incumbents who're up next go-round, at least Tom Price has the good sense to call a spade a spade, vocally declaring some time ago that the court's radical pro-prosecution precedents made them a "laughingtsock" around the nation's legal community. And Cathy Cochran finally came out to publicly criticize the Presiding Judge over the recent "We close at 5" debacle. The other judge up next year, Paul Womack, probably should be targeted before those two, but really IMO it's time to begin a comprehensive infusion of fresh blood.

I'm worried nobody will run for any of these slots, even though arguably these three may be the most vulnerable incumbents on the statewide ballot. Every potential candidate I've spoken to has said "no" or decided to run for something else, but I'm still hoping somebody - preferably three somebodies - will decide to step up and run on the Democratic ticket for the Texas CCA.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Boy, does this court ever need some changes!! This is the most corrupt court in the whole State and more than Sharon Keller need to go and get real jobs.

Watch the decisions on the 1st and 14th Courts, they deny more appeals than any other court and this a disgrace to the Judges who try to do a fair job. I do not intend to vote for any Incumbent Judge in the next election. I do hope a Democrat will run and help clean up a dirty mess in Texas, that being the CCA.

so, 12/04/2007 07:00 AM we need to know who you are and we can tell you who to contact to get signatures. I can get you many signatures and if you will send Scott your name, we will do the signature gathering for you. I can guarantee you many names from North Texas, but need to know who you are. Please send your name to Scott.

Seems pretty desperate to say that you will gather signatures for someone without even knowing who they are. Why would someone even make an anonymous post announcing their availability to be drafted? Sounds like the type of boneheaded move that one of the current members of the court might pull. I hope this volunteer isn't one of the loser perennial candidates who have run as Democrats for this court in the last several cycles. Where are the top-tier candidates?

Where is the capital defense bar? Hello, TCDLA, anybody home? They should be all over the opportunity to run people for this court. Are they waiting till 5:20 on Jan 2?

anyone know if Robert Frances out of Dallas county is still planning on running for a seat in the CCA? While he is republican, I have found him to be a fair and reasonable judge in the circuit courts. I know he didn't run for circuit court re-election and am assuming its due to the CCA election?

Someone with a civil background is better than no one at all, but the best person would be someone who knows enough about criminal law to be able to sit down with editorial boards and other organizations and have a good chance to get their endorsements. In the last election, one of the candidates did not even go to meetings with editorial boards. Some of those papers wanted to endorse someone other than the Republican incumbent, but the candidate not showing up gave them little choice.

These seats on the CCA are winnable for Democrats with the right candidate and if the Democratic candidate for president runs a closer election in Texas than happened in 2000 and 2004.

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